Thursday, November 24, 2011

Turner and The White Pelican Identification.

     There was one particular reading that I was assigned to read a week ago that I wasn't absolutely thrilled to read, but as I starting reading the text I began to enjoy not only the story but also the hidden philosophy of Jack Turner within it. In my Rhetoric and Literature class, I read in my American Earth text a background on adventurer Jack Turner and his nature story called "The Song of the White Pelican." It's a first person examination of Pelicans, most importantly White Pelicans.
     In this text, Turner makes an examination of Pelicans, both Brown and White, and it's in the first person. The location of the writer's study of Pelicans takes place in the American region of the Grand Teton area of Wyoming. The main question that is being asked throughout this text is what exactly is the song of the White Pelican. Eventually Turner states that particular song, but before that I believe I should bring up some helpful fact about the Pelicans that I read from the text. What Turner says about the bird was, "The white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos), one of seven species in the world, is a large bird often weighing twenty pounds, with some individuals reaching thirty pounds"(Turner 836). This information is impressive for Turner to obtain along with info on another bird like, "the brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentakis), is smaller and restricted to the coasts"(836). The writer has manged to distinguish important differences between the two kinds of pelicans. Another important quality of Pelicans that Jack Turner mentions fro m his observations is, "The silence of pelicans, along with their great age, contributes to their dignity"(Turner 839). His writing of their quietness is one of the most unique traits of the white pelican, and that's why the search for it song is so motivating for anyone who doesn't know what it sounds like. In one reading of the text, I learned that White Pelicans are friendly with human who fish as oppose to humans who watch them from afar or go up toward them. This observation of Turner is what I concluded as an example of Kenneth Burke's theory called Perspective by Incongruity, This looks for what can be exposed by examining relationships between objects ignored. In this case, pelican and humans.
     In conclusion, Jack Turner reveals the song of the White Pelican. The writer says, "I believe the clacking in the sky over the Grand Teton is the song of the white pelican. I believe they sing their song in ecstasy, from joy in an experience unique to their perfections"( Turner 848). I've come up with the explanation that Turner believes the clacking of white pelicans in the sky over Grand Teton is "The Song of the White Pelican" from the excitement the animal gets from flying and soaring in order to get some kind of release.

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